Rivkah's Rambles

She was born on January 19, 2000 and we adopted her when she was 18 months old. We knew that racing was not her strong suit because she raced a total of 4 times, coming in last or almost last each time. It wasn't until a few months later that I found the day of her birth on some papers and realized that January 19 is Edgar Allan Poe's birthday. Had we known, we might have stuck her with the name Annabelle Lee. Lacking this information we named her Cleo because Abe didn't like my first choice, Lizzie, short for Miss Elizabeth Bennet, one of my favorite characters in literature. He said the name reminded him of Lizzie Borden and the connotation was just too unpleasant. We thought of Cleo because her eyes were lined in black like Cleopatra's. I know greyhounds are a very special breed but Cleo really was extraordinary. She actually learned to walk off leash because she had no prey drive and chasing small creatures was not to her taste (pun intended). She actually learned things like "shake a paw" (taught by our friend Eva), to sit like a sphinx, to bark when she was hungry (and that was about the only time she did), and to poop and pee on command. She was mellow, perfect and she was my girl.

We still don't know what happened, but in the early evening of April 22 she vomited and started showing signs of distress. By noon the next day she was dead, literally minutes before the vet was going to do exploratory surgery. Remember that line from the movie "Fried Green Tomatoes?" Cicely Tyson says, "...a lady always knows when to leave. " That's how Cleo was. She just went. The hardest thing for me was not being with her when it happened. I literally arrived at the vet's office 5 minutes too late.

So there it is. Our beautiful pooch came in with Edgar Allan Poe and departed with William Shakespeare. Hard as it still is to think about, there's a lovely literary symmetry to it all, don't you think? And I'm so glad I took her to see Henry V at Shakespeare in the Park last summer. She got to hear Henry shout, "I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, straining upon the start. The game's afoot."

So, prey drive or not, I hope she's curled up next to Poe and Shakespeare listening to them debate their literary styles, and once in awhile thinking of me.

I had the good fortune to speak to a fantastic group of librarians at a great conference, "From City Center to the Exurbs: Trends in Public Library Realities." I think of it as the "Bernie Conference" because Bernard Vavrek is the brains behind it. It's great fun and it was a pleasure to hear George Needham, Denise Davis (Director of Research and Statistics for ALA), Andrea Michaels, and others. I had fun talking about all the things I believe about partnerships and collaborations, but my true "aha" moment came at the Milwaukee airport on the trip home.

Being a green tea junkie, and having forgotten to take any with me, I hightailed it to Starbucks when my flight landed at MKE to grab a grande. I ended up talking with Robert who was there cleaning around the Starbucks and flirting with the two young women wearing SBUX aprons. Don't know how it happened, but WHAT happened was one of those conversations with someone whom you realize, in a better world, would be a VP in a Fortune 500 company, a guru of some sort, or maybe even a librarian.

Robert is 19 and just that day found out his girlfriend is pregnant. Being a mom, I did my "you have to go to school" lecture. We talked about how hard that will be and how important, and he said he knew he needed to do it because we "are becoming a third world country." Since I use those very words all the time, I felt a little like Will Smith seeing the butterfly tattoo on the woman's neck in "I am Legend." Robert made me wish I had the kind of money that would allow me to say, "I'm going to cover your costs for school and living for six months. As long as you do well, more will be available. Go forth and build the future so we all have hope. We owe it to our past and our future to help you succeed."

While it breaks my heart to think that a 19-year-old worries about our civilization, it also gives me hope. The question is, what can we do about it?

I'm at the Wellington Airport waiting for the first of my 4 flights back to Omaha. My heart and eyes and mind are still reeling from everything I've seen. I won't even know where to begin. I have so many ideas, and I'm now convinced that everyone should travel by library! It's a great way to see a country.

Wellington was as beautiful as I knew it would be and the libraries exude typical New Zealand health. Central is stunning and even though yesterday was an unusually quiet Friday, it was bustling at 5 p.m., with people of every age doing all kinds of work. I was checking out the children's area when I heard a woman ask the librarian for "naughty" books. I was really curious about what she might really want and did my nosy American thing, thinking she might be wanting The Joy of Sex. Turns out she wanted Noddie/Noddy books (I didn't check the spelling) for her toddler! Obviously I need to spend more time here before I'm fluent in New Zealand English!

My trip has been so magical and amazing that I hesitate to mention any one place because every single library I’ve visited is unique and very special. That said, I keep reflecting upon what I saw in Christchurch, no doubt because it’s so similar in size to Omaha. Population is just about our only similarity since their budget, translated from New Zealand dollars, is about twice as much as ours, so the differences I saw in hours, staffing, collections and programs are astounding. There is a vibrancy that only having enough funding can help produce. Their buildings are beautiful, the newer ones include green features such as a moat that handles rain runoff that is used for the toilets, windows that open automatically to bring in fresh air, louvered shades that provide cooling and open and close to enhance the light. After hearing Blaine Brownell, author of Transmaterial speak at Pop!Tech last year, I’ve been on a quest to build a library that IS the library, where materials featured in the book are presented and explained in a way that they become in essence a living reference book that isn’t so much read as explored and experienced. Christchurch is almost there, and indeed, I visited the Greytown Library today and it features recycled glass from Israel. Obviously, New Zealand libraries can become a Transmaterial library for the rest of us!

It's clear that New Zealand libraries, with a history similar to our, including gifts from Andrew Carnegie, have built on that foundation and planning for a vibrant future. I'm jealous.

I'm writing this from a public machine at the Queenstown airport. It's been very interesting for me to be in a country where people definitely do NOT take Internet access for granted. Most of the libraries I've visited offer it, some charge, some restrict access and don't allow email, some provide it for free. It's definitely a case of the playing field not being as level as I think everyone would like.

New Zealand is a small country, under 5 million people, and high speed internet is not ubiquitous here yet. The libraries I've seen are doing an amazing job, but I think there are governmental restrictions that prevent them from making their vision real.

Given that lately I've been questioning wide open access (well, we do filter at OPL but it's still wide open) and the behavior problems associated with it, I wonder if there's a lesson for U.S. libraries to be learned from our Kiwi cousins? I'd love to talk about this. What I've seen so far are fewer behavior problems (the kind we have that are associated with internet access) and generally libraries that are very pleasant places.

It's making me think.

It's a long way from Omaha, but arrived safe and sound and have been having an incredible day. The Central Library is BEAUTIFUL and the staff is amazing. They do everything right. Can wait to upload a few of the photos I took. The whole look is clean, inviting and well merchandised. The library is an incredible hub of activity, from college students to young parents and babies, teens and even some homeless. It's everything an urban library should be but with fantastic wayfinding, super staff and a fantastic collection. They also have my dream--mobile shelving on the first floor so it can be moved for events! And a gigantic screen that was showing the BBC World News, but placed in such a way that it works without distracting. Well done!

I'm going to New Zealand in a few weeks and thought a blog might be an easy way to stay in touch. One of the coolest librarians in the universe, Amy, is helping me set it up. It's astounding how easy this stuff is. No wonder there's so much sound and fury signifying nothing out there on the web. Any idiot (I'm talking about myself) can set one up in ten minutes!

Don't worry. I will try not to waste your time and I will share my experiences, photos and excitement about visiting all kinds of libraries in New Zealand, beginning on April 1 (no fooling).